Darkling beetles, houses, Samoa

June 2013. The crop protection team had an identification exercise on the type of beetle commonly found around the houses at night. They usually found hiding in the houses corners, under the rocks and bases of plants during day time. We came up with its common name as darkling beetle or ground beetle: Order: Coleoptera; Family: Tenebrionidae; Genus: Gonocephalum; Species: ?

A member wrote: On Guam, there are frequent outbreaks of Gonocephalum adpressiformewhich occurs on many Pacific Islands. It is considered to be a nuisance pest which doesn’t seem to cause any economic damage and there are no recommendations for control other than removing leaf litter from around buildings.

There are links to some images at: http://s2.guaminsects.myspecies.info/taxonomy/term/3861/blog

Another member (CABI) mentioned general datasheets for Gonocephalum: http://www.plantwise.org/knowledgebank/datasheet.aspx?dsid=25656